


wanna leave behind some token of what i carried with me

by the_everqueen



Series: love to the ghosts [2]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - John Laurens Lives, Breakup, Canon Era, M/M, PTSD flashbacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Ideation, of a sort, the constitutional convention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 11:53:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12630498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_everqueen/pseuds/the_everqueen
Summary: Laurens quits the sword, puts on the toga, and comes to Philadelphia





	wanna leave behind some token of what i carried with me

**Author's Note:**

> if you haven't read "love to the ghosts" yet, do so; this is a sort of prequel, but the endnotes are useful for understanding the chronology  
> mind the tags  
> title, once more, from tmg's "unicorn tolerance"

That evening, John was in a mood that not even the return to their room, a cramped but private corner on the inn’s second floor, could cheer him. Maybe because he needed a drink to counter his building headache, an effect of the relentless summer. Or maybe because Hamilton’s speeches had not ended with the day’s session.

Hamilton, as usual, was oblivious. Without pausing in his tirade, he shucked off his jacket and stockings, made a considering face, and abandoned the waistcoat, too. “— damn Philadelphia, it’s like being back in the islands — I’m just saying, they might have given my plan a moment of consideration. It would be the polite thing, considering all the hours we wasted on that rehash of the Articles.”

“Since when do you care about polite?” John loosened his own cravat. Philly must have been getting to him, its air not just warm but heavy, almost too tangible to breathe. He didn’t remember it being this bad back when — last time he was here. Even his Carolina blood was boiling, although maybe those weeks in upstate New York had spoiled him. 

“Fuck you, I can be polite. And this isn’t about me —”

“Could’ve fooled me there,” John muttered.

“— it’s about the other delegates. I spoke for six hours. We rejoin and everyone wants to talk about tweaking Madison’s plan, how it might have some potential.”

“Wasn’t the point of your thing to boost support for Madison?”

Hamilton continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “Mine has its good points — the nation needs a strong executive who is more than a just a figurehead, who can take real  _ action _ —”

“No one wants a monarch, Alexander,” John snapped, harsh enough that Hamilton went silent, his brows drawn together in confusion. John was tired and hollowed out, his side aching from the trudge upstairs, and he wanted nothing more than a punch in the teeth. “We just declared independence from a king, you wanna set up another one? Yeah, yeah, Washington is the obvious choice for executive but who comes after him? Do we hold elections when he dies, since it’s for life? Or is the position hereditary? He doesn’t have children — unless you’re planning on taking that job.”

Hamilton bristled like a cat. “Those were rumors,” he hissed. “You don’t — you never believed them, before.”

John shrugged. He didn’t believe them now: there had been too many nights with them folded together, bits of their past dropped like puzzle pieces in the hope that the other could assemble them and grasp the whole picture. But Alexander’s orator tone had cracked down the middle, and he clenched his fists, expression twisted somewhere between betrayal and rage. 

John hoped dearly he would be hit.

Instead, Alexander sneered, “I’m surprised you’d insinuate the General is less than perfect. Unless you’re just disappointed in your replacement father, as well as the real one.”

“Was that supposed to be an insult?”

“Oh, that’s right. It was the other way around. What did the letter say?  _ I must console myself with the thought that I once had _ —”

“Shut up,  _ shut up _ ,” John roared. There was a thundering noise in his head; he got in Alexander’s face, backing him against the wall. 

Alexander bared his teeth in a nasty smile. “What’s the matter? Poor Southern rich boy can’t take a jibe?”

John sputtered and growled. “You, you  _ bastard. _ ”

Then Alexander did hit him.

They scuffled, palms stinging and nails gouging at exposed skin. John had a couple inches on him, but Alexander had spent the summer running after three children and carrying the fourth rather than lying on the sofa for hours on end. He fought like a feral thing, all claws and teeth, and pushed John toward the mattress. John grabbed at his shirt and pulled him down, one hand snaking up to grab a fistful of dark hair. 

Alexander yowled. Spitting curses, he managed to flip John over, hands pinning his upper arms, legs scrambling for leverage. His knee jabbed sharp into John’s hip, right where the scar puckered.

John made a broken gasp.

Alexander was off him in an instant, hovering in his peripheral vision. His mouth worked open and closed like a fish, but John couldn’t hear anything besides the current rushing in his ears, the desperate heaving of his lungs. He turned his face into the mattress, squeezing his eyes shut. There was mud on his face, slick and warm, those damn Carolina summers got into the very earth, broiled everything alive, dead, or in-between. He sucked in air and tasted blood and rot. 

“— Laurens? Don’t move, don’t move, please, I didn’t mean — breathe, John, that’s it —”

John breathed. John breathed and laid still and kept his eyes closed, letting Alexander’s babble wash in and out of his hearing. The river swelled into an infinite moment — he had always been dying, Alexander had always been here — and then it receded, leaving in its wake a diluted pain and the seeping embarrassment of having made a fuss over something that was mostly memory.  _ You’re a soldier, bear it like a man, have no recourse _

_ no recourse _

_ no recourse _

“John?” Alexander’s voice: quiet, small.

“m’fine,” John mumbled. He didn’t open his eyes.

“I can ask them to draw a bath, if you think a soak would help. Or maybe just some hot towels?”

“It’s fine,” John said, louder. He turned his head to look at Alexander, who was kneeling beside the bed, brows pinched in concern, hands fluttering but not touching. Mother hen. In his shirt and breeches, he looked nothing like the lawyer arguing his case for strong centralized government, but also nothing like the soldier, who had taken so much care to never seem disheveled except under the secrecy of night and bedcovers. 

He opened his mouth as though to protest. Seemed to think better of it and thumbed at the wetness on John’s face instead. 

“I’m fine,” John repeated. “Stop fussing.”

“Mm.”

“Seriously, it’s not —” He pushed himself onto his elbows, eliciting a distressed noise from Alexander. John made to snap at him, resume their previous argument, but holding that position even for a handful of seconds had his muscles trembling with effort. He collapsed into the mattress and settled for a glare instead.

Alexander’s face softened.

“Here,” he said. “No, no —” when John tried to move again “— stay there. Just… stay.”

With extreme gentleness, Alexander arranged John’s limbs into a more comfortable position, untucked and unbuttoned his shirt, dipped a washcloth in the tepid water from that morning and wiped his face clean. Then he climbed onto the bed, taking care not to jostle or bump. He folded himself against John’s side, close enough to return Adam’s rib to his side, and rested his head on John’s shoulder, placed a hand flat on his chest.

“I didn’t mean it earlier,” he said. The vibration of his throat working made John’s skin buzz. “That wasn’t fair of me, to — he hurt you, in that letter.”

_ You hurt me, _ John did not say. He had lashed out, too, and the bruises on his arms had not cured his apathy. He could not remember why he’d thought them a possible solution. “I don’t believe them. The rumors.”

“I know.” 

“I’m tired.”

Hamilton pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Then rest.”

_ Not that kind of tired. _ But Hamilton had given him no alternatives, just denied him the rope, dagger, and poison in the absence of battle. What else was left to him? No doubt Hamilton would have vetoed the pistol as well, if the Socratic allusion hadn’t better suited his purposes.

Sleep, perhaps. And this, Hamilton’s warm weight next to him, one final comfort before the rift growing between them was too wide to breach.

They would not have another moment like it.  

**Author's Note:**

> a few notes:  
> 1) per the usual, i am playing fast and loose with timelines - when have you known me to do otherwise?  
> 2) "But if you should be disappointed, bear it like a man; and have recourse, neither to the dagger, nor to the poisoned bowl, nor to the rope." AH to JL, Sept. 16, 1780  
> 3) John Laurens was a POW in Pennsylvania during the war
> 
> comments are greatly appreciated; i'm also on tumblr, @the-everqueen


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